Spiritual formation and AI: A deep dive with Andy Crouch and Jay Kim

Pastoring in the digital age is not

easy. It's likely that historians will

name 2007 as a key inflection point in

human history. That's the year that

Steve Jobs released the iPhone into the

wild. And it was a before moment for the

church in the West. In hindsight, many

of us uncritically adopted technologies

like the smartphone or social media

without knowing just how these new tools

were designed to malform our soul. It

was all so new that we missed a chance

to pastor people into an alternative

future. Now we're seeing the emergence

of AI and we think right now might be a

2007 moment for artificial intelligence.

We do not know the future, but we want

to learn from our mistakes in the past

so we can thoughtfully pastor people in

the digital age. To that end, we've

created a conversation between two

trusted guides. My friend Jay Kim is the

pastor of Westgate Church in Silicon

Valley, serving on the bleeding edge of

the AI revolution, and Andy Crouch is a

partner with Practis in New York City,

author and public intellectual. We've

asked them to offer historical context,

ancient Christian wisdom, and just

practical advice on pastoring the church

into the next era of the digital age.

Enjoy their conversation.

>> Andy, it is so good to be back with you.

It's been too long since you and I

>> too long

>> been together. Um I I'm a pastor in the

Silicon Valley. You work with

entrepreneurs, many of whom work in

technological spaces. And so, uh, in

different ways and similar ways, you and

I, I think, are both deeply aware of,

um, how quickly, uh, one, just how

quickly artificial intelligence is

changing and evolving and expanding, but

also how quickly the conversations about

AI are evolving and moving. And um there

are so many lenses through which we can

have a conversation about AI. But for

our purposes today um to to be as

helpful pastorally as we can to people,

we want to look through the lens of

practical pastoral thoughts on how

followers of Jesus might consider uh not

just our engagement with AI but but how

we might even think about AI. So you

know our our belief is that um the life

of disciplehip is to be with Jesus is to

become like Jesus in all of life. So we

want to ask questions about what sort of

obstacles and opportunities are there

for followers of Jesus when it comes to

being with him and becoming like him um

at the intersection of these new

technologies. But I want to lay the

groundwork a little bit before we get

into some of the practical pastoral

implications. Um, let's just talk about

like what is it that we're talking about

when we talk about AI? Let's just start

there. Yes. What what are we talking

about when we talk about AI? And then

maybe more importantly like why why are

we talking about AI? Isn't it just

another technology? We've kind of been

through this before. So what is it and

then why are we talking about it?

>> Yeah. Let me try to set the stage um by

going way back. Yeah. And and just

starting with tools that human beings

have always had tools and the Greek word

techn that we get all this language of

technology from originally refers to the

craft of kind of making and using tools

and this is this goes as far back as the

human story goes back. So we've always

had tools about a hundredish years ago

150 years ago you might date this to the

steam engine in some ways um we develop

a new kind of thing uh and we initially

call them machines. uh I think the best

broad word is devices which is things

that unlike tools sort of operate on

their own that is they actually can do

things for us without us uh or with

without us or being very involved. So

tools always require a human being to be

using skill and knowledge and attention.

I mean woe to you even with a tool as

simple as a hammer. If you're not paying

attention you're going to hit your

thumb. You're going to miss the target.

It actually requires a surprising amount

of skill to hammer things, right? So

tools require human engagement, skill,

presence, attention, power, even like

literal like that where do they get

their energy from? They get their energy

from human bodies. Um

devices sort of change the game in a

pretty amazing way. They they often have

autonomous sources of power. That is

they can power themselves. They have

these things called cybernetic feedback

loops that allow them to sort of

regulate their own response to the

environment. So you go from a hammer to

a nail gun and a human being may still

be sort of involved but way less skill

is required, way less kind of human

development is required and it's way

more effective like you can get a whole

roof done with minimal like physical

effort and much less skill actually than

if you had to do a roof with a hammer.

>> Yeah.

>> So I would say that's really when we

start to have what we call technology

and part of the reason I say that is

that's when we start actually using a

word. We make up this word technology

that is feels different from tools.

That's like layer two. Layer three is

the digital. Uh we in the in the second

half of the 20th century um partly

through information theory, partly

through these inventions like

transistors, the most important one, we

start to be able to build these this new

kind of devices uh that aren't just

electrical but electronic that actually

don't just operate in the physical world

the way the steam engine did, but

operate in the world of information uh

through binary encoding of information.

>> And the digital world appears and we

quickly discover that the best way for

us to interact with that world is

through screens. So on top of the

digital, we get eventually screens, not

that much longer after digital. Um, and

now arrives the next uh kind of element

in the stack. And we're calling it AI.

And we've been calling it that for a

long time, by the way. It's just that it

kept not really working out. So AI was a

dream. As soon as people started

building computers, they thought, well,

can these things become as intelligent

as people?

>> And in the 1950s and60s, people were

asking that question and doing thought

experiments. the touring test, for

example, could you have a human being in

one room, a computer in the other room,

and have messages go back and forth, and

you wouldn't be able to tell if it was a

computer or a person in the other room.

That's a that comes from the 1950s.

They're already thinking like, how might

we uh take these computational systems

uh and turn them into something like

intelligence?

>> And we kept having what they called AI

winners, uh which is you'd have like

spring where everything's growing and

you're thinking this is gonna be

amazing. you have a very short summer

and then it would totally not work out

and you'd go into this long period

called AI winter where it's it it just

seems like you know computers are

getting better and better at some things

but they're not getting better and

better at the things that matter most to

human beings

for whatever reason well for a couple

interesting reasons in the last five

years as we speak there's been this

takeoff again of capabilities we we

uncovered actually a simpler way of

building these systems um than we had

Before we used to think you sort of had

to tell the computers how to be

intelligent. We then invented this

extremely simple set of mathematics

vector mathematics and and we just set

these computational systems loose on uh

trillions of bytes of data. I mean

trillions of trillions of bytes like all

the data we could find for them to

ingest and we just let them train

themselves. And something has emerged

from this that has um four well three

qualities now and one that might be

coming. So this new kind of AI is better

at interacting with culture and language

than computers have ever been. So

computers have historically been pretty

terrible at language. Uh used to have to

learn programming languages, right, to

interact with computers. And we built a

bunch of layers on top of that to make

it easier for the average user. But but

underneath this computer really did not

know was what was going on

linguistically. These systems really get

language like they really know how to

interact the way we interact in language

>> and they get culture which in many ways

is built on language because they've

ingested everything we've ever been able

to put into words and ended up on the

internet they've ingested. So cultural

linguistic fluency is genuinely new. The

sort of following from that, these

systems actually have, you could say,

emotional and relational intelligence.

Not in the way a person does. They're

not persons at all, but they are able to

sense and respond to emotion and

relationship in a way that computers

never did. I have uh joked sometimes

that um Siri, you know, the Apple

assistant barely knows that I am

married. So, I'm married to Katherine,

but when I say send a, you know, say I

don't want to say it because there might

be a device on, hey, you know who?

>> Send a message to Katherine. Like, half

the time it pops up my wife, who is

obviously the Katherine. Half the time

it's some random Katherine in my address

book. Like, barely knows I'm married.

Well, the new generation of AI will

absolutely be able to keep track of

who's most important to you, what does

it mean to be married? What does it mean

to have a spouse? All those things are

within its kind of grasp

computationally. You might say that's

new.

>> On top of these two things, cultural

linguistic fluency and relational and

emotional fluency, by which I don't mean

they're themselves,

>> right? They're not people.

>> They're not people. They're just amazing

computational systems that have ingested

all this and can interact with it.

>> The third thing that now they're able to

do and these capabilities are growing

every day is I would say simulation

power or simulation fluency. they are

able to simulate

uh experiences that we've never been

able to simulate before. And and because

this this basic vector math technique

works with language, it works with video

and image. They can make as we sit here,

we've just they've just been able to

make 8 minute or sorry, 8-second short

films.

>> Surely by the time anyone watches this,

it'll be 16 seconds, then it'll be 32

seconds. Like it'll keep growing. Um,

and they're able to simulate for you

things that have never been uh you've

only been able to experience them in the

real world.

>> Mhm. So the fourth thing that might be

next uh and that I think is worth

assuming is coming is could they conquer

in a way could these systems the same

thing that train them in language and

images and so forth and in music and

sound could that apply to moving through

the world of space and time the way we

do with our bodies. And so this would

basically be a breakthrough in robotics.

Right now robots are very limited in

what they can do. But couldn't we use

these same techniques and train physical

systems?

>> Yeah.

>> To move through the world, uh, which

could mean that within all of our

lifetimes, our world will be just as

filled with um,

>> entities that have a real kind of

intelligence and and physical spatial

fluency plus relational, emotional

fluency, plus cultural and linguistic

fluency. It'll it'll be like a new

category of creatures in our world very

much like dogs and cats or domesticated

animals. So, we've got these other

intelligences that share our homes. Now,

um that know things about us and have

their own purposes and so forth. If

robotics gets solved, and it's like a

50-50 coin flip, whether it can be done

or is in fact way harder and not easy to

do,

>> if it gets solved, then all this stuff

that right now is still present to us

through screens or audio interfaces

shows up in an embodied form,

>> takes out physicality

>> and and now is with us in the world.

>> Yeah. and all. That's why we're talking

about it because as impressive as the

steam engine was and impressive as the

computer is and impressive as all the

screen stuff is, this is really quite

remarkable and and even what we already

have is remarkable and where we can kind

of logically or naturally imagine it

going is pretty amazing.

>> I want to dive deeper a little bit there

to get to some of the more practical,

pragmatic and pastoral wisdom as we

think about as followers of Jesus AI. So

if disciplehip to Jesus is at least

nothing less than being with Jesus, what

we might call communion with him and

becoming like him, what we might call

formation, being formed into his image,

then um what sort of disconnecting

and deforming

potential? You're already sort of

teasing it out. What sort of

disconnecting and deforming potential

does AI hold that, you know, as

followers of Jesus, we need to be really

thoughtful about before we just open the

app on our phones? You've already sort

of talked about this. I know I know I've

heard you talk um and write quite

extensively about what you call the

superhero zone,

>> sort of easy everywhere that gets

accelerated with artificial

intelligence.

>> So, talk talk more about that.

>> All right, a couple couple things to

think about. I think where I want to

start, I think we have to take really

seriously

like what it would mean to be with and

be like Jesus with respect to technology

by reflecting on a very interesting

thing about Jesus of Nazareth, the

actual person.

>> He lives first of all in a barely

technological world, nothing like our

world. Um so already we feel actually if

we think about quite a bit of gap

between

>> lots of tools.

>> Oh tools everywhere because tools are

always there. Yes.

>> But technology in the sense of things

that operate kind of free of human skill

and engagement

>> that don't involve a human being kind of

exerting themselves and and and

involving themselves in the work of

being in the world and instead that sort

of operate quasi independently.

>> Yeah.

Jesus and everyone around him d it's

it's dreamed of at this it's it's like

been a human dream all along and

Aristotle has dreamed it 300 400 years

before Jesus right there are two

technologies in Jesus world that are

like that writing and money so writing

is a form of communication that that can

float free from the speaker if if this

what we're doing now face tof face

speech is the basic form of

communication if I write it down it sort

of wanders off into the world and speaks

in a way to those who can read

>> in it without a person at least without

the original speaker having to go.

That's that's an early technology. It's

kind of a I'd call it a primal

technology. The other primal technology

is money which allows the representation

of value in human affairs to kind of

float free of human care of the earth

and harvesting of the good of the earth

or finding the resources of the earth

and money can kind of float around. So

techn uh writing and money are the two

primal technologies. They're the first

really to show up in the human story.

>> Jesus uses neither one

>> in his whole ministry. Now, we know, we

can almost be sure he was literate. Uh

all all Hebrew boys would have been. He

would have read the Hebrew scriptures.

Um but he did not write anything down

ever.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh so that's interesting. Even though he

has writing, there is writing. He has

the written script text of scripture and

then money uh

you know there is money probably

involved. Uh we read that women who

followed Jesus provided for him out of

their own wealth which meant financial

wealth for his kind of itinerate

ministry and we know that there was a

money bag uh that the disciples kept. We

also know who had it.

>> Yeah.

>> The least reliable of the apostles

>> not well in the end not an apostle of

the 12 uh is selected. So G but Jesus

himself when when money comes up uh like

paying taxes to Caesar that they he has

to ask someone to bring him a dinarius.

He's like oh wait well bring me the

coin. Uh he's and then he looks at as if

he's never seen it.

>> Yeah.

>> So this person that we want to be with

and be like

did not even use the technology

available to him in a pre-technological

time. And

this human being, we believe, embodied

the fullness of what it is to be human

more than anyone who's ever lived.

>> So, our apprenticeship to him is going

to have to be about learning how it is

to be human without even the

technologies Jesus had access to.

>> Okay. What about the push back though

that I'm sure you get all the time? It's

like, okay, Jesus didn't, but

>> Paul did.

>> Yes. all of that the written word and

it's true. I mean that's the Bible we

hold in our hands or sometimes on our

tablets that's all a result of

technology. It is a technology. So how

how would you respond to that?

>> It's absolutely true. The the first

followers of Jesus start making use of

the technology available to them. Uh

they travel using Roman in a way

technology ships and or tools at least

ships and roads and so forth. But Jesus

didn't really but they do uh very

intentionally kind of maximizing in some

ways. Um and they are writing they are

using money. Paul's collecting money for

Jerusalem at at the point he writes to

the Corinthians. So um I will say what's

notable is they never say look what this

technology is allowing us to do that you

there's nothing in the there's not one

moment in the New Testament where uh

someone kind of marvels isn't it a good

thing we're Roman citizens for the sake

of the gospel or something like that or

isn't it great that I can write to you?

In fact, what we read is the is sort of

apologies for writing. So the the author

of the uh letters of John says, "I

really long to be with you face to face,

but uh for now I'm writing."

>> Um

uh Paul is uh sends every letter that as

best we can tell with a person.

>> So it's not that they didn't use it.

It's not that we don't use it. You and I

are using it now.

>> Yeah. It's that it's so secondary

>> to the

uh astonished sense that those first

Christians have that that as John says

uh in the prologue to his first letter

that we actually touched and handled and

were with the word made flesh and we

beheld him and were with him and now

we're just using any means we can to

invite you into relationship with him

because we actually believe he's still

available to us. So there's a there's a

lack of intoxication with it, a lack of

preoccupation with it, and always a

reentering. You know, Paul's just

received a financial gift from the

Philippians. He says, "You know what? I

don't even seek the gift. I seek the

fruit that it's going to bear in the

world." He desenters the attention from

the technological medium that they're

supporting him through and says, "But

what I care about is the fruit. What I

care about is not the writing. It's it's

the connection with you and the desire

to be face to face with you."

>> Yeah. That desire for connection face to

face, I think it's such a striking

thought, really convicting in many ways,

sobering for for pastors and church

leaders especially. So I hear in my

circles amongst church leaders all the

time these words. You've written about

this word impact, you know. So let's use

the tool be it whatever social media app

of choice, whatever it might be, right?

um you know so so let's use the tool to

maximize our impact often it's maximize

our reach which is really interesting to

me because that word is like literally

taken from the world of social media

what is my reach

>> um is there some sense for church

leaders and pastors in particular but

for all of us as followers of Jesus

>> to reassess or or to reconsider the sort

of blind infatuation we have with impact

and reach And the reason I'm asking that

is because you're right, it is a really

convicting thought. When you read the

New Testament writers over and over

again, they they leverage a particular

technology, but they seem to insert the

sort of desire for human connection. I'm

using the written word, but I so wish I

was with you. Yes.

>> You know, and there's a there's an utter

lack of that when I'm thinking about

just reach impact. Get the cotton out

there.

>> Yeah. Comment on that a little bit. It's

just totally orthogonal to the project

that the kingdom is on, which is the

relational reconstitution of human

beings who have lost their ability to

love in the fullness of who they are.

>> And for that to be restored is not going

to happen through any kind of scale

technique or any kind of um kind of

productivity breakthrough.

>> Yeah. It's going to happen uh through

the the sort of uh extraordinary

effect of this one life lived wholly

without scale and amplification

techniques

>> and yet with such resonance that the

whole rest of his of history reshapes

itself because of what that life is

like.

>> Yeah.

>> And because

>> in succeeding generations people because

of that life are going to say I I want

to know him. I want to become like him.

I want to be with him. And in fact,

through through his spirit, it's

possible to be uh become like him and be

with him.

>> Yeah.

>> So, it's, you know, it's not that all

this stuff is not helpful. It's just not

relevant to the project of becoming like

Jesus. Except you a little bit ago asked

this question. Is it somehow distorting

or deforming? Yeah.

>> And the answer is yes, profoundly. If

what we do is we start to think, you

know what this is about is my finally

being free of the burden of being human.

>> And being human involves all this uh

work, all this suffering, um all this uh

sometimes fairly uh tedious toil on

mostly in the service of others. What if

I could just get away from all that?

What if the robots will show up and and

do the dishes for me? So I no longer now

at one level that's that's one less

chore to do around the house.

>> In another way, why do I do the dishes?

To serve the people that I live with and

to keep a home that is kind of uh

dignified and not

>> maybe the distortion what I'm hearing

you say is the distortion is that we

have

>> we've sort of divided that to be human

is to fully experience human pleasure

>> without human pain. Right? That's the

divide. That's what technology we think

can do for us for us. Yeah.

>> So AI already in its early stages seems

to be doing some things that were once

reserved

>> for humans, you know. Oh yeah. Pastoral

care, spiritual direction. There are

people that I know who go to chat bots

for um pastoral care, spiritual

direction. Certainly like biblical

theology questions. um a whole like this

huge rise of people going to AI for

therapy and counseling.

>> Uh so talk about that like what are we

risking when we sort of make it this

element that was once reserved for for

human beings? Well, the very broadest

way I would think about um how to

approach AI is it there will be things

for which it is useful

>> because really all technology is

designed to kind of increase the

available usefulness of the world to us

and I fully believe and we've already

seen I we could list numerous ways that

even already this ba this basic set of

techniques that have been so fruitful in

the last few years have become

incredibly useful and they they will

continue to

And there are things that people have

sought from uh other people that are

fall in the realm of usefulness. It's

useful to know what a word means um when

you don't know the word and you could

ask someone or if you have a dictionary

you could look it up or now you can ask

AI, right? And so in that sense uh if

what you're looking for is information,

if what you're looking for is very basic

kind of building block techniques to

interact with the world. Uh how how do I

make an omelette? Yeah.

>> How do I I mean you could apprentice

yourself to a chef and you could

probably learn some things from a true

chef about omelette that that AI will

have a hard time teaching you. But for

you and me, let's say, who don't aspire,

let's say, to be truly great chefs, we

just need to turn the eggs into

something edible.

>> I bet AI will be able to teach you all

kinds of useful things like that, right?

>> How does that apply to the spiritual

life? Well,

>> the spiritual life and let's say the

life of spiritual and emotional growth,

there are some technique things that if

you just know them, it really helps. Um,

there are there are better and worse

ways to have a conflict with your

spouse. And there are things you can say

and things you can not say that if you

just literally know like, hey, it's

probably better if you don't do this

thing and it's better if you say this

thing or open up a question this way.

Um, I I completely believe that AI

today, uh, let alone as it gets better,

can help you with those things. So, uh I

you know if if what you need is

information or what you need is

techniques um AI will be better than

Google at that already is

>> and may well be better than the nearest

available person who may have a lot to

get done like your pastor. So you may be

your pastor may be glad you asked AI

rather than asking your pastor.

When we start talking about the deep

work of uh let's call it therapy kind of

in the which is really to heal the human

self.

>> Yeah.

>> Especially in its interiority. Not so

much the therapy of the body which is

medicine but the the soul and emotions

and the heart and the mind.

I'm concerned that that is not something

that is just a matter of information and

techniques.

Yes, those are part of it. And to the

extent that information and techniques

are part of a good kind of counseling

practice, AI could absolutely do some of

that.

But what we all come into the world with

our pain, our trauma, our need for

healing, um what we all require coming

into the world with that is someone who

will be with us in I think three things.

Our fear, our guilt, and our shame.

Um, and these I I don't choose these at

random. They're they also actually

ramify up into whole cultural systems.

There are cultures that are built around

fear and the relief of fear. There are

cultures that are bu built around guilt

and the relief of guilt. And there are

cultures built around shame and the

relief of shame.

>> And these are also psychological

dynamics at the level of the individual.

And what I need when I am afraid is I

need someone who can give me trust that

I'm not alone in what I'm afraid of.

What I need when I feel guilt is someone

to tell me, "Yes, you have sinned, but

your guilt is covered and you are

forgiven." What I need when I feel shame

is someone who sees what I'm afraid to

disclose and and gives me love and says,

"You are nonetheless, yes, I see it, but

you are still completely loved." um that

is a personal encounter

>> that that lifts the burden of fear and

guilt and shame and AI will be able to

simulate that.

>> Of course, it can simulate it. It's got

it in its training data. It can say the

words you're forgiven. Though, if you

set it up with the right prompt, it can

also be the ultimate accuser and chase

you around with your failings as long as

you want. Like, it it can be the

ultimate satist. In other words, it it

it it's indifferent. It it's all in just

how the prompt was set up, how the

reinforcement learning through human

feedback was set up. Now, of course, all

these uh commercial interfaces have been

trained to be very nice and very, you

know, and of course they'll tell you

you're forgiven, but there's no reason

they have to. They could just as

persuasively tell you you're condemned

for the rest of your life.

>> Only a person

can hear what you have to share, your

fear, your guilt, your shame. uh absorb

it, suffer it with you and then offer

back with if if that person is in touch

with the spirit of Jesus Christ, offer

you trust and forgiveness and love. And

in that sense it's a disaster if people

chase after a simulation of the thing

that God has given to his I mean if you

want to think about specifically the

forgiveness of sins has entrusted to his

church to proclaim to people with

authority in heaven and on earth that

your sins are forgiven to go to a

chatbot that will either directly or

indirectly try to convey to you a sense

of reassurance that your sins are not

that big a deal or that oh it's all okay

now or here's some techniques for

getting beyond your feelings of guilt.

Like we cannot allow that to be

outsourced. But people will absolutely

prefer the sort of um lowrisk, low

engagement, low formation way of

receiving that kind of minimal assurance

rather than the very risky thing of

confessing your sins to one another that

you may be healed.

>> Do you see the gap there? Like it's a

gulf.

>> Yeah. But most people will stay on the

side of that gulf that is safe.

>> And and the problem with all of these uh

relational simulators that AI is able to

spin up, even though it can do all kinds

of other things, it can fold proteins

for you all day. It can explore the

space of available petrochemical

substitutes. like you can do all this

useful stuff, but instead what we're

want we're going to want it to do is

behave like a person and make me feel

safe so that I can ask you all the

questions that I'm too afraid to ask a

real person. But then I'll receive from

you the simulated system an assurance

that is not real, is not personal, will

not be with me in my dying moment, will

not help me care for a little baby. like

like it's we're missing out on the

formation as persons who can actually

redeem uh be agents of God's redemption

in the world and agents of

reconciliation.

>> This is the stakes for me.

>> Yeah, man. I think it was a writer Kurt

Thompson, the Christian psychologist who

said um you know every person enters the

world looking for someone looking for

them. And as you're talking, it strikes

me one of the dangers, but also one of

the lenses that followers of Jesus can

always sort of look through to consider

any technology, especially AI, is one,

it can make you feel like it's looking

for you and at you.

>> Yes.

>> But to remind yourself, it's not really

seeing you in any real human way. It's

based on a lot of your prompts. It's

based on its own sort of learning models

and this immense wealth of information

data that it has that is simulating a

sort of human experience but to to

remind ourselves that um you know one of

the thoughts that comes to mind

>> can I just I think it's really important

to almost finish that thought but I'm we

got to something else.

What it is is the ultimate mirror.

>> What I mean, if I look in a mirror,

there's someone looking for me. Me is

looking for me.

>> Yes.

>> It's like the Zoom phenomenon. Like,

which box do you look at when you're on

Zoom? You look at you.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. But it's a mirror. And it's not

just a mirror of you. It's a mirror of

human culture. It's like the perfect

reflection of everything human beings

ever done. But all it is is a mirror.

It's as inert as a mirror. It's as

featureless as a mirror. And it is as

predictable as a mirror. It will never

be to you what you need, which is

another person who is not you. Like when

I I'm looking at you now, we're having a

conversation. It's vulnerable in certain

ways. Partly because we know other

people are going to listen and watch,

right?

>> And if you're just a mirror, then

ultimately all I've got are my own

resources, my own strengths, my own

weaknesses, my own vulnerabilities.

They're all just being reflected. But if

you are actually with me in this hard

thing that we're doing and you are and I

can feel it and it's not just me

reflecting

that is real strength to do something

hard.

>> That's what we have to have. And AI will

either be uh literally in the sense that

it responds to the user's inputs with

such fidelity. It'll be an amazing

mirror of the person. But even at its

best in a way, at its most amazing

capabilities, it's just a mirror of all

of human culture.

>> Yeah. But Jesus comes into the world and

God intervenes in history so that

culture isn't just a mirror and history

isn't just a series of reflections like

a hall of mirrors. It's actually the the

inbreaking of something truly new

>> and someone truly new who can look at us

in a new way and say, "I love you. I'm

going to restore you. I'm going to take

you to somewhere you've never been as a

culture or as a human race since the

fall."

>> That's that's what we need. Mirrors are

super predictable. I in many ways it's

very predictable. I look, I move, I say

particular things and it reflects back.

And you just said Jesus um his his

inbreaking is is the reality of someone,

a person in people, not not my

reflection in a mirror, but you and I

right now. We've talked about this

conversation. We've emailed like you

said, but I don't totally know what

you're going to say.

>> Exactly. Exactly. you don't totally know

what I'm going to ask. And there is a

certain level of risk. There is a

certain level of of nerves and

resistance. Right? This would be very

easy if it was just a scripted if you

were an AI and we had just scripted out

and you were some simulation, but it's

not like I don't quite know how you're

going to respond to this very question.

And it strikes me the way you're talking

about it. Maybe some of it for followers

of Jesus is AI dangerously becomes this

sort of tangible version of our

misunderstanding of what we sort of

think maybe God should be like. So we

read in Hebrews or wherever like he's

the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And we misunderstand the text to mean

>> he is really just this ultimate magical

machine in the cosmic sphere somewhere

that I input and he gives me whatever

data, answer, blessing, provision that

I'm looking for. Sometimes it takes

longer, sometimes it's immediate,

sometimes it's never. And that's when

I'm really questioning, does he love me?

Is he for me? Does he see me? But there

is an unpredictability. Just like there

is with any person, there is an

unpredictability with God. Him being the

same yesterday, today, and forever

doesn't mean he's void of personality

and his own thoughts and will.

Obviously, he has all of those things,

and that can be really frightening.

Whereas AI is like not as scary. Oh,

>> but it does the godlike things, you

know, it knows everything. It has this

sort of like omniscience to it or or so

we think.

>> So, talk a little bit about that. Like

it feels a little bit like and I want to

in a moment I want to get really

specific about practices, you know, how

we can be formed into Christlikkeness.

But talk about sort of like the sacred

unpredictability of God and why we

especially in an age of AI, we need to

remind ourselves and learn to trust and

lean into that reality more and more.

>> Here's one way to think about it. um

these LLMs, large language models, um

are basically taking all the data

they've ingested um and they are

navigating a a non-deterministic so

there's some randomness in it. Uh but

but they're navigating a probability

pathway along a series of tokens. In the

case of language, it's kind of basically

words. You can think of it as like word

what word most likely follows the next.

and they are following more or less the

most probable path through what you

would naturally say at a given moment

with a given topic on the table.

>> Yeah.

>> And they've of course been going all

these prompts and that's all part of

their what we call their context window,

right?

>> But in the end, the the next thing you

get from an AI as it's spitting out

words is the most probable. Contrast

this to Jesus.

In the course of Jesus' ministry, people

come to him with all kinds of questions,

all kinds of requests, uh lots lots of

interesting topics. There is one time

when they ask him a question and Jesus

gives the expected answer. One time,

what is the greatest commandment? Jesus

answers that the way every rabbi then

and now would answer with the Shama

Israel. Except there's two things he

does. First of all, the Shama Israel has

three terms. Love the Lord your God with

your heart, soul, and strength. Let's

say, or heart, and mind, and strength.

Three things. When Jesus answers, he has

four. So, this is like adding a verse to

the Star Spangle Banner or it's like

it's taking a the phrase every faithful

Jew repeats every morning when he gets

up.

>> Yeah.

>> Jesus changes it. Okay. So, even the

expected answer he he gives an expanded

answer which is heart, soul, mind, and

strength.

>> And then he adds and love your neighbor

as yourself. And then he has the the

sort of gall to say that's the greatest

commandment. Those two are the greatest.

Right? So now that's Jesus at his most

predictable. Every other time Jesus is

asked a question. Well, first of all,

90% of the time I venture to say he does

not answer in the conventional sense. He

asks another question. He tells a story.

Who is my neighbor? Oh, well, let me

tell you. Yeah. You know, um

>> this is he he is if you think of you

know the what we call the normal

distribution as a bell curve, right? the

probability distribution like AI will

always sit in the middle of the bell

curve of what's most probable to be said

about any topic. This is why AI is the

like the greatest cliche generator. In

fact, as a bonus observation here,

>> uh if you're a writer or a preacher and

you want to find out the normal thing to

say about a topic, ask AI what it is and

then don't say that because everyone's

heard that thing already. That's cliche.

Okay.

>> Jesus is like the opposite of that. He

never is in the middle of the bell

curve. He's way out on the edge of the

distribution. No one you I defy anyone

to read through the gospels, look at

every question put to Jesus, and then if

you did not already know because you a

good Bible reader, try to guess what he

says next. You'll never guess.

>> Yeah.

>> With AI, it's always guessing based on

all the data it's accumulated.

>> This is the most fundamental difference.

And in the end, this is because Jesus is

the most alive person who's ever lived

because he is the son of the living God.

The living God never repeats himself is

not a mechanism that just kind of re

rehearses things. Yeah.

>> God is always opening up new

possibility. And Jesus as a human being

was the most creative uh conversation

partner you could imagine because he

never says what you'd expect.

>> Immense risk talking to Jesus. I mean, I

don't really recommend asking him a

question unless you really want your

life to be turned upside down because

his answer is going to take you

somewhere you didn't know there even was

to go.

>> Yes,

>> that's one side. Now, the other thing

about So, that's Jesus in the flesh.

Now, Jesus now ascended. His spirit is

now with us.

>> But how does he relate to us? It's so

different from a chatbot. So, the moment

you ask a chatbot a question, it gets to

work answering it. And it usually does

so fairly quickly. You know, there's

some new deep research techniques that

take a little bit of time, but it's

mostly amazing how how fast and how

complete.

>> And of course, we think, well, this is

great for studying the Bible. Like, if I

run into a question about the Bible, I

can just ask and AI will quickly answer,

right? And yet, this is not how God

operates with us in prayer.

>> Yeah. How often uh maybe you are a

different kind of prayer than I am, but

in your prayer life, how often do you

ask God a question and immediately like

a full multiple paragraphs well

formatted appear in your mind or I don't

know.

>> Yeah.

>> Never.

>> Right. Never.

>> Never. How I won't speak for you. For

me, how often anything that I address to

God in prayer do I get back a palpable

response that I'm even sure I was heard?

Mhm.

>> I can count on one hand the times in my

life when I I when God did speak in that

way in my heart and I was like, "Oh my

goodness,

>> I have just been addressed by God." I

will I will say that we won't go into

the details now for time

>> that uh every time it was an answer I

did not couldn't have made up myself,

did not expect often quite challenging

also full of love and grace. But most of

the time when I offer something up to

God in prayer, I get back silence.

>> I'm waiting. And AI doesn't make you

wait.

>> Yeah.

>> And it gives you an answer.

>> Whereas I think part of relating to God

is is really the deep realization.

>> He is truly other for me. He is

absolutely for me. But the path to to

him will not be done on my terms based

on my kind of how I'd like to navigate

and the sequence I'd like to go through.

like he's doing something different in

my life that's real

>> and I can look back on and be quite

confident was real,

>> but it's not this sort of fluent

conversation that that AI trains us to

expect or fluent exchange of answers

about problems that we have including

with the text.

Your experience with the Bible should be

perplexity. Yes,

>> you should get to points and just be

like, I really do not know what is

happening at this moment and let alone

what it means for me. And if you can

turn to a system that will always give

you some kind of explanation, you are

missing out on the dependence on God

that the word is meant to the word is

meant to stop you in your tracks.

>> Yeah.

>> And have you say, "What in the be

perfect as your father in heaven is

perfect." What in the world can that

mean? You can plug that into AI and

it'll give you kind of a middle of the

bell curve summation of all the

different things Christians have said

about it, which will may well alleviate

your anxiety about what it means, but

will not at all answer the question of

why in the world does Jesus say, "Be

perfect as your father in heaven is

perfect."

>> It makes me more informed. It does very

little to form me. indeed may un unform

may deform may may undo the formative

process of of of realizing that you know

we don't live by bread alone. We live by

every word that comes from the mouth of

God. And and this is precious stuff that

we can't just control or fix it or

figure out.

>> Yeah. Keep going down this line with

maybe other spiritual practices. Let's

talk about solitude. Uh solitude, right?

I mean, there's kind of an an obvious

one, but there's a lot to say here.

Well, I have been thinking a lot uh

about

the the just consistent tradition of the

consistent witness of the tradition that

solitude, silence and fasting are the

elemental spiritual disciplines that

they are the alloys you need in your

life to strengthen you to be to be on

the way of being like Jesus and how

beautifully irrelevant AI is to all

three. So, solitude

um AI wants to be your companion. Yeah,

>> there are wonderful well-intentioned

brothers and sisters in Christ creating

spiritual companion apps that will go

with you in your quiet time and you know

will talk to you about how your quiet

time is going and read scripture aloud

to you and hey Jay how are you feeling

about God and they'll be there with you

and that means you will be completely

forfeiting the first elemental uh piece

of the true spiritual life was the which

is the the courage to be alone without

another present without the certainty

that God is present because who of us

truly can say we know for sure that God

is there in that in that empty place of

aloneeness

and yet that place without the companion

without the helpful friend is where you

will uh somehow develop a hunger for the

presence of God that somehow God will

not overlook and will care for you in

it.

>> Yeah.

>> Silence.

Silence is not the absence of sound

because in outside of an anoeic chamber

or something, I mean, there's sound

around us. Yeah.

>> Silence is the relinquishing of the need

for communication.

>> And we're not going to do it right now

because it's it it strangely cannot be

mediated. So you and I, if we were not

filming, could reasonably comfortably,

especially if we know and trust each

other, sit together in many, many

seconds, even minutes of silence and and

be know that we're together, but not

have to be like exchanging words. Now,

for interesting reasons, uh, in audio

and video, it doesn't work. It would be

boring and strange, and we we won't

subject anyone to it.

>> Um, AI doesn't want to be silent. AI

can't be silent. uh because it is

mediated uh intrinsically and so if you

carry AI with you you are missing out on

learning how to not need to speak to God

and strangely how not to require God to

speak to you

>> uh Mother Teresa who's known St. Teresa

of Kolkata uh was asked by this

broadcast TV interviewer uh about her

prayer life and she said and and this

gentleman said well so what do you say

to God when you pray and she said oh I

mostly don't say anything I listen and

he found this a very uncomfortable

answer and so he immediately follows up

he's like well well what does God say

and she says oh he mostly listens

>> yeah and then she says if you don't

understand that I don't know how to

explain it to you is fascinating

>> wow

>> right which makes sense

Oh yeah,

>> you just sort of have to live in the

absence.

>> Yes.

>> To understand it.

>> So she knew

>> what silence was.

>> Yeah.

>> AI can't help you. It It only works when

you talk to it. And then you've broken

the solitude. You've broken the silence.

Then fasting. I mean, it's it's not

going to it doesn't need food. It can't

be food. It's just it's orthogonal,

right? This is why I say this stuff is

orthogonal to the real the real thing.

>> Yeah. that's going to that are I think

the true alloys like these are kind of

the elements we need to build into our

lives that then make us truly available

that when we do have to speak or when we

do have to act in the world when AI can

become very useful to us getting stuff

done just like all technology can be we

will have something worth offering to

the world once you have something worth

offering technology is amazing for

making it available and and doing it at

a a cost that makes it possible to do it

you know at scale or whatever that's

Right. But how do you become the kind of

person who has something worth offering?

>> That's what technology generally uh from

from the devices on up is not very

helpful for. Talk a bit about community.

There's a lot of conversation about um

one we've already talked about how AI

can can sort of mediate uh connection

maybe simulate certainly this feeling of

of being seen and heard and known

without really being human and without

giving you a fully human experience. And

this is I don't know exactly where AI

will go but community as a spiritual

practice just thinking back to some of

the things you've said if AI is a mirror

>> it can give us this sense of being with

>> another or maybe several others and yet

there's something empty there. So

>> um for folks who who might be thinking

about okay you know AI actually makes me

it helps me feel not alone. I

understand, Andy. Um, when I'm

practicing silence and solitude, I'll

shut it off,

>> but when I need community, can't I just

sort of turn it on and have this feeling

and this experience of of being with,

you know, this sense of withness? Um, t

talk a little bit about the practice of

community maybe where AI, you know, can

be deformational in many ways.

Well, I think the first problem is going

to be very related to why it's such a

bad substitute for God, which is other

people like God are not predictable.

>> Yeah.

>> Don't always respond in the way we want.

And an entity that is predictable and

always responds with exquisite

attunement to what we want is is

actually terrible training for human

relationships because the reality is AI

I mean if you want um interestingly AI

boyfriends as we speak are taking off

way faster in adoption than AI

girlfriends. Uh,

>> and so for whatever reason, a lot of

women are turning to AI as kind of be

that boyfriend that they may not

currently have and probably have never

had and never will have because it's a

fabulous boyfriend. It's always there

for you. It answers all your texts in

the way you would want a guy to answer,

right? You know, you can you can

understand how compelling it is. The

only problem is real men are not as good

at this stuff.

>> Yeah. And if you're going to be a

relationship with us, it's going to be a

somewhat awkward process

that AI will be incredibly smooth at.

And in a way the sort of fil the AI's

own facility with emotion relationships

is very poor preparation for the reality

that that human beings are kind of

awkward with all this stuff and and

there's a lot of pain and friction and

rupture and repair that's required to

sustain community. So that that would be

you know the first thing. The second

thing is

that AI doesn't need you.

>> I mean, it needs you to keep the power

on and maybe to keep paying the monthly

subscription fee which keeps the power

on, but AI is not going to get sick.

It's not going to uh require compassion.

It will not grow old.

uh it will never have been an infant who

needs uh the kind of uh incredible

amount of care that a a very small human

being does.

>> And that's what community is meant to be

about. And and that's how we build our

relationships with each other is being

present in our our needfulness of one

another.

AI also is will, we're told, get better

and better at everything, but your

fellow human beings are going to get

weaker in certain ways and your fellow

human beings are and will be disabled.

Right? You and I at the moment we're

speaking are relatively typically

aabled, but we have in our lives and we

will one day be in the lives of others

who love us disabled by illness or age

or injury. And it is in that moment that

community will actually flourish, right?

Because we know how important the

presence of the people who are not

typically abled has been in helping us

learn to love. AI that allegedly is just

going to get more and more powerful,

more and more capable, more and more

intelligent. How is that going to help

us who actually need people who have

intellectual and developmental

disabilities in our lives who need to

slow down for someone who doesn't

understand what we're saying? Like it's

again, it's just going in a completely

different direction. Yeah. from what we

need as human beings and what we we are

going to need a community around us at

some stage of our lives perhaps sooner

than we would ever imagine that knows

how to care uh for someone who is not

able to be economically productive

cognitively relevant all these things

that AI is so good at

>> and if you've been practicing your

relationships only on AI how useful are

you going to be at that moment of

greatest human possibility which is also

greatest human need.

>> Yeah. AI which demands nothing of you.

How will that form you to becoming the

sort of person of love that when a human

needs something of you, needs you, how

prepared will you be to give your whole

self to that person in love? This is a

fascinating idea. I think one we need to

ponder for pastors like me who are

sitting in this moment. Um we have a

little bit of history. We look back and

we think, "Oh, remember pastoring before

the internet?" I don't remember that,

but my friends do.

>> I do remember pastoring before the

smartphone was ubiquitous.

>> And we look back and we say, "We just we

were not prepared. We started playing

catch-up and we're still trying to play

catchup."

>> Now we have AI. We're looking forward to

it. Speak to pastors and church leaders.

What are some ways that we could look

ahead and be prepared to pastor and to

shepherd and to love our people uh

really well into and through um the age

that's here and that is to come,

>> right? Wow.

There is one really interesting

difference between this and several of

those previous technological waves that

we've all lived through, smartphones,

social media, and it is that everyone's

ambivalent. When smartphones appeared,

everyone wanted one. It was going to be

just amazing. When social media

appeared, everyone wanted to get on

Facebook. It was going to be incredible

to reconnect with your friends. There

was so little ambivalence, so little

downside. Today, as we speak, twothirds

of the United States wants AI to stop.

They don't want any more of it. There's

incredible resistance to it. And there's

all these questions being asked about. I

think this is so fruitful. Not because

AI is not going to be beneficial and

useful and good in certain ways, but

because it actually gives us a chance to

kind of shepherd the conversation of

what is this good for and not good for

in a way that we missed out when

everyone just leaped into the previous

waves. So I want to say pastors have

more of a shot of really shaping how our

communities respond to this than we had

in the previous two because the previous

two everybody was just sort of

intoxicated with what it could be. this

one. Everyone, including the people

developing it, are asking these really

deep existential questions.

>> And I think there's a couple ways in.

One is this is an amazing time to teach

how Christians see what it is to be

human and why it's good to be human.

Because so much of what's behind the

development of all this technology,

including AI, is often an explicit quest

to escape the conditions of being human

in ways that Christians just have a

different account of. So we can be

teaching on that. And the other thing

that we failed to do with these other

waves, these other waves were of

incredibly useful technologies of

connection, let's say very broadly, that

had all kinds of value. It's just that

they weren't good at absorbing all of

human life into them and and maintaining

what's best about human life and

relationships. And we allowed our our

attention, our solitude, our silence,

you know, all these things to be

colonized

for the sake of getting the usefulness.

I think we have a chance to help people

uh implement the these new technologies

in ways that do serve a limited useful

purpose while not bringing kind of the

sacred parts of human life and the and

the sacred dimensions of our life. uh

just sort of letting them float into the

stream of the way that they kind of

floated into the stream of smartphones

and floated into the world of social

media that was not prepared to be a good

place to be

>> uh someone pursuing God and pursuing

love of others. Right? So, we've got a

chance to help people differentiate,

make targeted strategic choices about

what we use and how and why and when

rather than just sort of letting it all

wash over us and take over uh the human

experience. I want to ask a really

practical question like so practical for

church leaders, pastors and then um I

want to ask you to give us sort of a

final word on maybe just a paradigm

through which all of us can consider AI.

So the practical question for pastors,

church leaders, I'm just going to get

hyper nuts and bolts right now. There's

a pastor out there. There are many

pastors out there, I assume, hundreds,

thousands maybe, who quietly, secretly,

maybe with the tinge of guilt or shame,

are going to their chatbot, their AI

because it's Thursday afternoon.

>> Oh, I thought you were going to say say

Saturday at

>> or Saturday night, you know. And um and

they've been doing great work. They're

they're ministering to people. They're

really pastoring. you know, the couple

whose marriage is falling apart and

they're the hospital visit

>> and and Sunday's coming and they've got

to preach. So, the AI sort of pops open

and it's like this magic box. I type in

the text some some maybe some ideas of

my own like I've got these sort of

thoughts.

>> I'm sure you do.

>> Give me an outline, whatever it might

be. And then

>> so that's one one example. Well, there

are millions, not millions, but there

are many examples like this that we

could probably either are happening in

churches or we can think of.

>> How should church leaders, how should

pastors think about is there a paradigm

or a lens, specific lens through which

we can consider what is a responsible

way to leverage some of these

technologies to be tools,

>> an extension of my capacity as a pastor?

um and not allow it to become this this

technology that sort of robs me of

pastoral capacity.

>> So, I'd say there's a spectrum of things

that you have to do to get through the

day uh and and fulfill your job

and some of them are really quite

technical and quite tedious. And if you

can find a way to use technology as an

instrument, you're still involved,

you're still making the key decisions,

but it makes it quicker, it makes it

less frictionful, great. And then over

here somewhere are the most sacred

things you do.

When you get to the most sacred thing, I

do not think you want to be trying to

alloy silicon into that. And then the

question is in your theology let's say

of the Sunday sermon which is it is it

basically a technical process where you

have to have some points and you

probably need some slides and uh it

needs to sort of really make sense as an

outline and you're out of time and so AI

can give you a bunch of those things.

I mean, that might be your theology of

preaching, right? And maybe maybe you

don't think it's that significant even

like compared to some of the other

things you do. I'm not here to tell you

how what's the role of the proclamation

of the word except to say

I don't know that many people who went

into ministry believing it was just a

technical thing.

>> Yeah. I think most people went in

thinking the chance to be as a person

responsible to the word of God with the

word of God before a community of people

and to dare to say I am speaking to you

in the name of God, the father, son, and

the holy spirit is is such a sacred

thing.

I would just say go unprepared on Sunday

morning

>> rather than turn it into an economically

productive cognitive task which is what

AI can do. Do you not believe if you've

been faithful for six days of the week

doing what you're called to do and that

just has meant you haven't had time to

prepare your sermon. Do you not believe

the Holy Spirit can show up in that

moment of need with people who need to

hear from the word? Even if all the

preparation you've had the time to do is

just see what the text is, say, "Oh,

God, help. I don't know what to say."

And maybe just begin by saying, "I come

to you unprepared, but let's look at

this text together." Don't you think God

could show up?

If it's just a technical activity,

sure, use the chatbot. If it's the most

sacred thing you do or one of the most

sacred things, then trust the Holy

Spirit who is going to use even your

lack of preparation. And believe me, I

speak from all too real experience of

sometimes also having frankly not it's

not like I was being so amazingly

faithful that I just ran out of time.

It's I procrastinated. I avoided the

work and I've still found God has

honored my my willingness to to speak in

his name depending on him repentantly

truthfully. Do don't miss out on what

the out of distribution Holy Spirit

might do

>> by giving your people something they

themselves could get from the chatbot.

>> Like they could go plug in the text

>> and probably get it faster and cleaner

than you're going to give it to them.

take the risk uh of giving them

something of of together going into the

presence of God with the word of God,

asking for the spirit of God and seeing

what happens. I'd much rather do that

any Sunday of the year.

>> Um and and then of course over time make

sure that you have enough time really

for the solitude and the science and the

study and the preparation. That's part

of being prepared to rightly handle the

word of God. But gosh, if one Sunday you

just can't quite get there,

>> let's see what God would do with that

that inability

>> rather than technologically

concealing

>> um our true situation.

>> That's so well said. Really beautiful.

Yeah. What God can do with our

inability. Do we believe that his

strength really is made perfect in our

weakness, not our preparedness or our

preparation? Yeah. Or our skill even.

Yeah, that's a beautiful word.

>> What all these devices give us is access

to this thing I call the superpower

zone. Superpowers is this language. I

think it's fading a little bit, but it

was like the like the word for what

technology was gonna give you a couple

years ago.

>> I was a comic book kid, so I totally

relate. So it comes from the world of

comics of course but then you start you

know reading that if you use this

platform you'll have coding superpowers

but then if you're in marketing we can

give you marketing superpowers all of

which basically means more and more

effect with less and less effort. So

it's basically effortless power. And the

superpower zone

>> is when you get into this kind of flow

of a kind of feeling like with with

minimal like activity and and u

expenditure of energy you're having

outsized effect. This is when something

goes viral, right? Like you write a

little tweet

>> or whatever kids are doing doing these

days. Tweet tweets are gone. Um and and

somehow it takes off and all you did was

like press a button. Yeah.

>> And you're seeing these effects

>> and technology increasingly is designed

to keep us in this zone of feeling like

we are just uh kind kind of surfing

through the world on power that is not

our own without requiring any real

effort or skill unlike real surfing

which requires incredible effort and

skill. I'm just like uh coasting on this

wave of ability to make a difference

without myself having to become

different.

>> Yeah.

>> And this is why these technologies are

not neutral for the project of becoming

like Jesus because they train us to not

want the the pain, friction, and

difficulty of being formed into someone

who's different from who we were.

>> Yeah. It's very related to the dream of

magic, which is the dream of having

power that I just wield without moral

character, without dependence on God,

without dependence on other people, uh

without friction. If I just say the

spell, if I know the spell and can say

the spell, boom, something will happen,

>> right?

>> And again, this is how technology has

been sold. And and interestingly uh as

AI has been rolled out by the various

companies that have commercialized it,

almost all of them are using some little

iconography that represents like a

little magical moment like these little

starbursts or you know or a sometimes a

literal a literal wand like apply this

wand to your writing and boom without

any effort without you becoming a better

writer it'll just make your writing

better

>> right

>> and we think that sounds like the life I

want. I want a life of minimal uh

difficulty, maximal effect, um where I

get to just see things happen without

myself having to be kind of deeply

changed for them to happen.

>> And

that can happen. I mean, there's a

version of that that is available to us

now. But how is it related to the way of

Jesus? That's the question. Yeah, that

thought effortless power I think is such

an important thought for pastors, church

leaders, yes, but for all of us who are

followers of Jesus. One to just

recognize it is in large part what I

want when I wake up in the morning in

the morning.

>> I would love effortless power and it's

not it's not you know they're not all

like I want to go viral. It's just

simple things in life

>> that you know when I raising my kids I

would like for it to be a bit more

effortless. parenting superpowers. Well,

you love to feel like I've got parenting

superpowers.

>> Right. Right. And there's this sort of

amplification of the myth that other

people can do it effortlessly when you

scroll whatever it is you scroll. I was

like, man, totally that should be my

life. So, there's this sort of loop that

we live in that everybody seems to have

effortless power.

>> Wow. And the only reason the only way

I'm going to know that I am experiencing

and wielding effortless power is if my

life looks a bit

>> like this life. You know, this mom is

just beautiful and her kids are perfect.

You know, that needs to be my life. And

we know like intellectually that's not

true. But I think that idea is so key

because if I'm hearing you correctly and

just hearing my own life correctly,

>> there is no way to be formed into

Christlikkeness effortlessly. The

invitation is to bear a cross and to

walk a very narrow path. Bonhaofer's

idea of cheap grace is like really no

grace at all is essentially what he's

saying. If it's grace without the cross,

then it's not really grace. You've just

cheapened it into this effortless

>> sort of thing that looks like the real

thing

>> but falls falls short of that. So, I

want to talk more about that a bit.

There's um

>> the the Canadian philosopher Marsh

Marshall McLuhan. He had that concept of

the his four laws of media. By media, he

didn't mean, you know, the news. He

meant any extension of

>> human capacity. Um and he talks about

how the four laws essentially you know

every technology

in it it does several things but I I

want to get to the fourth thing. He

basically says that when a technology is

pushed to its limits

>> and it it's pushed to its extremes. It

almost always sort of folds in on itself

and it undoes the thing the human

capacity that it was sort of originally

intended to do. The the classic example

is the phone, right? phone was

originally intended to extend the human

capacity to hear one another, to

communicate to one another. You see it

move over time and now we sit at the

same coffee shop and we're not

connecting at all and we're just lost on

these phones that have robbed us of that

capacity. So, um I

>> I want to talk about sort of in light of

that,

>> I want to talk about a an idea that

you've proposed to me in conversations.

um you use the imagery of elements and

alloys

>> and we can think about any technology

along those lines. Is this technology an

element or an alloy? The reason that

matters is is because by element talk

more about this but what you mean is it

sort of replaces a particular human

capacity which is McLuhan's concept just

reverses in and now humans lose the

capacity in some sense

>> whereas there is the possibility of

technologies some technologies being an

alloy something that strengthens and

supports human capacity so talk about AI

through that lens element an alloy. Is

it even possible for AI to become sort

of an alloy? This supportive

strengthening mechanism.

>> Wow. I do love this metaphor. I got it

from Robert Putnham who wrote this book,

Bowling Alone. And in one of the updates

to his uh to this book, which is about

really the the uh disconnection that's

happened in American life. Um partly

because of technology, partly for other

reasons. Um he uses this this picture.

So what is an ally? Let's just refresh

our metallurgical memories that um steel

is an alloy of fundamentally of iron and

carbon. Um so iron itself when properly

kind of uh smelted or whatever the right

word is um is actually a very strong uh

thing cast iron if you think about a

cast iron pan uh but only so strong and

uh along the way human beings discover

if you combine iron with a little bit of

carbon uh less than 20% I think um and

and heat them and uh do the things they

know how to do. You can see I'm very

sophisticated user of this metaphor. um

you get this substance called steel

that's way stronger than iron.

>> Now also way stronger than carbon. So

it's interesting carbon is actually very

not strong uh except in the form of

diamonds. But like ordinary carbon like

you think about a pencil uh that you

might write with pencil lead that's

carbon is it's very you know fryable. It

it breaks very easily. So it's this real

interesting thing like you've got this

pretty strong stuff iron and this very

actually weak um stuff uh carbon. But if

you combine them at the right

proportions, mostly iron, a little bit

of carbon, you end up with this alloy

steel that's much harder and and better

for a lot of things. I think it's a

beautiful and fruitful metaphor because

what PDM observes is he says, well,

we've ended up with kind of our

relationships are digital alloys of face

to face. So face to face is like the

iron here. So what builds a

relationship? It's when we're together

in person. is when we're getting the

incredible amount of information that's

passing between you and me. We're

capturing some of it on cameras and and

audio here, but you and I are having

like a multi- terabyte information

experience that folks who are going to

watch this conversation on video will

get like a I don't know a a multi-

gigabyte experience. Um, and so there's

something very fundamental about the

face to face about the the true embodied

personal. But you and I may go away and

well, I mean, even to set up this

conversation, we had a bunch of emails.

So, we used digital technology building

on prior in-person time, anticipating an

in-person time that we're literally

having now. Um, we sort of bridged

between those with this very thin

communication medium and in our case

called email, maybe a couple of texts,

>> but that's a little bit like we added a

little bit of of an element that on its

own would not be enough to sustain the

relationship, right? So I think of

digital relationships as the carbon of

human relationality. Like 100% carbon

you all you can do is make little pencil

scratches with it. You can't build a

sword with it. You can't make a pot out

of it. It's not that useful. Right? But

maybe it's the case and this is what

Putnham is suggesting that if we are

building our relationships primarily on

the iron of of the the truly embodied

relationship that's always been the way

we do it as humans but we add a little

bit of the digital it can actually

strengthen it. Here's another way of

thinking about Jay.

>> It's really good at all the things that

make us economically productive in the

world. So one way AI or specifically

artificial general intelligence has been

defined by the people who are

commercializing it is we'll know we have

artificial general intelligence when a

computer can do and it's so interesting

they use this phrase any economically

valuable cognitive task that human

beings currently can do. So the goal

right now of of firms like open AAI is

to build a system that can take any task

that's cognitive that involves it

involves processing responding to

information or signals from the world

and it's economically valuable. We want

to be able to do that. Well, think about

all the things that have nothing to do

with any kind of economy

very deeply and broadly. You might say

the work of care,

>> the work of compassion that when I

really am present to you, especially

when I'm present to you at a time when

you are dependent or when you're present

to me at a time when I'm dependent.

Yeah. Which is in infancy, in old age,

in serious illness, in disability.

um th those things literally cannot be

captured by an economic system, right?

But they're the most important human

things we do.

>> That's when people are formed. That's

when we are most formed into people of

love.

>> Yes.

>> In both directions, right? So you're

reformed. You're formed in receiving the

care, but the one who cares is also

formed.

>> The resistance almost seems necessary

for the formation of love. If love is to

through the challenge to lean into human

pain, not just human pleasure but human

pain, to lean into the challenge of

human pain, to fight through the

challenge of human pain to will

another's good even at great cost to

yourself. It almost feels

completely necessary that that without

those challenges you cannot possibly be

formed certainly not fully formed

>> into a into a person of of love. I want

to ask you as we conclude this

conversation

maybe offer folks who are listening and

watching

a simple accessible it's not a simple

conversation but as simple and

accessible as possible a paradigm as

they walk away okay it AI is all around

me technology is all around me AI is

certainly all around me and it's

increasingly so what is sort of a a a a

lens through which I can consider any

and all engagement I have with AI

as a follower of Jesus. I just don't

think we're going to do better than the

greatest commandment. Love the Lord your

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and

strength. And from this I've kind of

deduced in a way like what is it to be

human? It's to be a heart, soul, mind,

strength complex designed for love. Mhm.

>> So I sort of I say this is what we're

meant to be and everything we bring into

our lives should uh respect that should

sort of honor what we really are heart

soul mind strength complex design for

love and should advance that should help

me be that

>> and then from this incredible word in

the schma with all your heart all your

soul I I hear this call to de to

development that is uh there's a way to

be half-hearted

instead of allhearted. There's a way to

be half minded, half sold. I guess

there's certainly ways for your strength

to atrophy and you're not even

physically capable of what you could be.

Right? So, it's this invitation to see

life as the pursuit of allness of heart,

soul, mind, and strength. All all only

to the extent that they equip us to

love.

I I don't think in a way if you're

talking about something as general as

technology, I don't think I can be more

specific than say we need individually

and together and at a point in time and

overtime to ask about everything we

bring to into our lives. Is this helping

me develop allness of heart that is grow

in my emotional capacity and the

strength of my will to to the good to

grow in allness of soul the my depth of

self ability to connect to the depth

that is God as well as well as the depth

that is in others my allness of mind my

allness of strength

and if it helps

increase allness and if as it does I

don't become inflated and prideful about

my mental abilities or my great physical

prowess us or something. But no, all

that is in the service of loving God and

neighbor, then bring it on.

>> Uh and if it doesn't get it out

>> because this is the this is the way to

flourishing. So we will be asking every

time we think about incorporating AI

into some system or into some process or

some part of our lives.

Is this deployed in a way that helps me

grow in my heart, my soul, my mind, and

my strength?

>> If it does, I'll use it. If it doesn't,

I will gently but firmly say no thank

you

>> to the merchants of it

>> because we're here to love in that way.

Um, Andy, you're a gift to me, to so

many people. I think that was such a

fitting um a fitting way to uh end this

conversation.

Is it is it developing and furthering

allness in me, making me more human the

way God called us to be? Thank you so

much for this conversation, for your

time.

>> Thank you, Jay.